The jurors will reconvene on Oct. 18 to begin deciding whether Hayes, 47, should be put to death.
The sole survivor of the attack, Dr. William Petit, said "there is some relief" at the guilty verdict, "but my family is still gone."
"It doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring back the home that we had," Petit, surrounded by relatives, told a throng of reporters outside the New Haven courthouse.
After deliberating four hours over two days, the Superior Court jury convicted Hayes of 16 of 17 counts in the slayings of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, at their home in Cheshire, Conn., on July 23, 2007. William Petit was severely beaten but managed to escape.
Six of the counts were for capital murder. The jurors acquitted Hayes on the one count of arson, indicating they weren't sure that Hayes lit the match that set the house on fire.
Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who still faces trial, were charged with breaking into the home at night, beating the father with a baseball bat and tying him up while they rummaged through the house for valuables.
According to witnesses during the three-week trial, Hayes forced the mother to go to a bank and withdraw $15,000 while the other intruder remained in the house with the Petit girls. At the bank, Hawke-Petit managed to alert a teller. Tapes of the bank manager's 911 call and security camera video of a terrified Hawke-Petit at the bank were among the most compelling pieces of evidence at the trial.
Hawke-Petit then returned with Hayes to the house, where he raped and strangled her. The house -- in a small community of some 28,000 that was ranked by Money magazine as one of the best 100 places to live in 2009 -- was then set on fire with gasoline. The intruders fled but were quickly captured by police.
But it was too late to save the Petit girls. Tied to their beds, they were trapped in the burning house. Both girls died of smoke inhalation, officials testified, and Michaela had been raped.
Local police took heat for not responding quickly enough to the bank manager's 911 call, which came about 30 minutes before the house was set ablaze.
Capt. Robert Vignola of the Cheshire Police Department testified during the trial that he decided not to let officers approach the house until he established a perimeter around it with a SWAT team, according to the New Haven Register.
Hayes did not testify during his trial, but his lawyer argued that Komisarjevsky was responsible for escalating the violence. Prosecutors countered that Hayes could have left the house at any time, but remained.
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During the trial, Petit, a respected endocrinologist, testified that he was in a fog and recalled sitting up on a couch, with warm blood dripping down his face. He had been struck in the head with the baseball bat.The intruders had also tied his ankles and wrists. One man said, according to Petit's testimony, "If he moves, put two bullets in him."
Petit ended up in the basement. He testified that he felt a "jolt of adrenaline" and the need to escape. He hopped up the steps and escaped through a door, crawled out and rolled his body through the yard to the home of a neighbor, who didn't recognize him because he was so badly beaten.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Petit said it was very difficult for him to attend the trial every day.
"Do I really want to do it, do I look forward to the ride every day?" he told reporters, clad in a camel-colored sports coat and black mock turtleneck. "No, I have a little nausea every time I get off the exit ramp, a little nausea every time I get out of the car and walk across the street. But I think I do it for my family.
"What matters to me most is my family and my memories of my family," he said.